IDB Invest has published a new report that presents the business case outlook for adopting climate resiliency measures in designing and constructing residential and commercial structures and building capacity among construction companies in Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago.

The authors found that the main catastrophic risk in these Caribbean countries are hurricane winds, and concluded that resilience measures for flooding, hurricane winds, drought and extreme heat have high returns on investment. Moreover, the ROI averages for archetypal SME warehouses are typically higher than those for residential properties across all countries. In addition, authors mentioned that there are various financing mechanisms available to support climate-resilient solutions including: international climate-related funds such as the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and the Adaptation Fund, multilateral development banks (MDBs), national climate funds, public-private partnerships (PPPs), insurance and risk transfer mechanisms, among others. Finally, authors recommend that innovative lending arrangements should be designed to increase uptake, and initial lending products should be targeted at heat resilience measures.